All great parties must come to an end, but there’s always that last surge before it’s time to go home. Riot Fest is no different, but after two days, the third was bound to be tinged with a little instant nostalgia. Summer camp was coming to end, and it felt like a natural response to reflect. But hold those horses, there was still a full day of bands to go. And whether by design or by comparison, Sunday felt less hectic than Saturday. There was still a lot of quality, but the smaller octane bands owned the day in general, saving the heavy hitters for later in the day.

The day started with everyone’s favorite motivational speaker, advice columnist, and all-around party exciter, Andrew WK (pictured top). Andrew WK has pretty much done the same routine since I Get Wet was released in 2001, the only variation being whether he’s solo or with a full band for maximum rocking. Call it the hair of the dog or just keeping the party going, but Andrew’s gleaming whites and positive reinforcements in party metal form were the perfect way to get the day kickstarted.

The second act of the day was Superchunk. While the records the band has made since ending their nine-year hiatus have dealt with getting older, their set defied aging. The group is now minus bassist Laura Ballance, who had to drop from touring due to a worsening hearing condition, but her live replacement, Jason Narducy, is a similarly energetic presence. Energy-wise, the band was turned up to 10, but frontman Mac McCaughan was on the level of 11. Possibly the best single moment of Superchuck’s set was the back-to-back airing of “I Hate Music,” the title track of their most recent album, and “Slack Motherfucker,” the breakout song from their debut. The message was clear: rocking out then and still rocking out now.

Although their were some minor hiccups, Riot Fest never seemed to drop the ball. But what happened next was possibly the single biggest misstep moment of the entire weekend. Chicago’s own Naked Raygun (pictured above) was tapped as one of the 10 essential album bands of the weekend and were scheduled to play its debut album, Throb Throb. But there was a bigger story: after a brief reunion in 1997, the band reformed for good in 2006 after getting back together to play Riot Fest. So fittingly, the Riot Fest founders  were watching from the side of the stage as the band played. Frontman Jeff Pezzati seemed in a great mood and fully aware of the moment, taking a break after the first song to bring the founders onstage to sing “Happy Birthday” to Riot Fest and present them with a cake. Still the time was for celebrating Throb Throb even if, as he explained, “one of the songs sucks… I know because I wrote it!” So what went wrong? Well, it was the sound again. Over the course of the weekend there were varied sonic issues, but nothing on the scale of those during Naked Raygun’s set. The mix was way off, with the vocals so high they seemed to be off time with the band. The drums were ridiculously low and the guitar sounded like it was being played through a broken amp which was then played through a broken speaker. It went from mildly annoying to straight up disrespectful because it took three songs for the problems to be addressed. The issues were never completely resolved, but the sound got better. It’s just a shame because it could have been the emotional touchstone of the weekend and it felt disjointed. The band even brought out former bassist Pierre Kezdy, who had to leave the band after having a stroke in 2011, to play four songs to close the set. Everything was in place for a transcendent moment, but it fell far short for reasons beyond the band’s control.

Depending on your perception of Riot Fest, Tegan and Sara could be seen as square pegs. But for them, it was a type of return to their roots. Responding to a dude’s call to “bring the muthafuckin’ ruckus!” when they strapped on the acoustic guitars, Sara explained that as kids they thought of the Violent Femmes and their acoustic approach as being punk, so when they started playing, they wanted to have the same approach of making acoustic guitars punk. And with a cheerful, “So fuck off!” they launched into a spirited jaunt through their post–So Anxious catalog and showed that punk is where the heart is.

Possibly one of the single largest crowds of the weekend gathered when Dropkick Murphys took the stage. It went beyond “oh, this is a lot of people” to “I’m never going to get out of this crowd and I’ll have to make a new life here.” But during my Oregon Trail journey to get out of the throng of people, the Murphys showed exactly why their brand of Celtic punk has endured for all these years and why they’ve continued to grow in popularity despite the absence of typical mainstream support. They give the people what they want and make even the most button-down type feel like a Irish street tough. But the crowd was a bit too much, and as I emerged from the mass, I stumbled upon Chicago band My Gold Mask playing on one of the smaller stages. A female-fronted electro-pop trio in the vein of Metric or Tegan and Sara, their danceable melodies were a nice counterpoint to the Murphys’ rowdy business.

And then for something completely different. Even if you’re not a huge fan of Patti Smith (pictured above), it would be absurd to deny her influence and impact. There are a few different modes in which Smith traffics so it was interesting to see which one would come out to play. The answer was the under-acknowledged crooner side of Smith. It may have been simply in response to the significance of the day (the performance fell on what would have been her deceased husband Fred “Sonic” Smith’s 65th birthday) coupled with the fact that Smith was born in Chicago and spent her youth playing in Humboldt Park. There was a lot in the air. And you got that with Smith’s tender performance of John Lennon’s “Beautiful Boy,” which she dedicated to one of  Sonic’s grandchildren. Then she induced goose-bumps with an incredible performance of “Because The Night.” Even if you’d heard it a million times, it was hard not to get caught up in the moment. For much of the show she was in a nurturing mode, but her set eventually gained ferocity and boiled over as  Smith and her band blasted through “People Have The Power.” By the time they finished with the expected closer, “Rock N’ Roll Nigger,” Patti was in full froth. (As an aside, lots of smart people have written lots about that song and there’s nothing new to add to the discussion, and it’s clear what her intentions were. However, it’s still unsettling to hear a crowd of people gleefully yelling out “nigger nigger nigger!”)

Upon seeing the backdrop of the next band, Social Distortion, which stated “Live Act Since ’79,”  someone in the crowd declared, “They’ve been a band longer than I’ve been alive!” Yes, they have, but they played like they were young lions. Lead singer Mike Ness is at his best grizzled, gruff, slightly country-tinged and slightly sentimental, as he was this night, and the band jumped to various spots in the band’s history and even took time to touch on Ness’ solo album. They did nearly every song you wanted to hear and then a few you forgot about. They were so good it was almost troubling.

To close, there was the potential battle between Weezer, who would be performing their Blue Album, or The Cure. I opted for The Cure, who was granted the longest set of the entire weekend, a robust two hours and 15 minutes. It made sense as their sets in recent years are routinely near three hours. Mixing deep album cuts with crowd favorites, it was a wildly unpredictable set. It was the type of set that let you know you were in for something special. There were so many amazing moments it became cartoonish after awhile. The band was in peak form, seemingly getting stronger and stronger as the set went on. And singer Robert Smith seemed to loosen up as they progressed, even busting some dance moves out. If your teenaged self wasn’t freaking out over cuts like second song “Fascination Street,” you may be too jaded. The only downside was that due to the hard 10pm curfew and the fact that Humboldt Park is in a residential neighborhood, a possible encore was scuttled and the set ended on a deep cut when it could have gone supernova with one of the hits. Still it’s a minor, minor quibble.

While Riot Fest has changed a lot since its beginnings, it’s never lost sight of its vision of bringing people and bands together, highlighting the popular and the underground. And the festival circuit is all the better for it. Here’s to its next 10 years.